Rod Johnson has managed to put over 474,000 miles on his 1995 Chevrolet Silverado! Click the link for the video.

Mr. Johnson mentions that he gets and oil change every 7,000 miles, but also uses an additive called Prolong. He also notes that he regularly rotates his tires. He has had to pay $200 for a new radiator! He also tows a trailer with granite in it.

This makes my Chevy Tahoe sound pretty new. It only has just over 190,000 miles.

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Law.com has a good summary of a car accident case and whether or not Facebook postings are discoverable in accident cases. This hasn’t come up in any Oklahoma cases (yet).

The case involved an auto accident back in May ’07. The insurance company defending the case was Allstate (well, technically, the attorneys they pay).  Remember that a jury doesn’t get to know who’s paying the defense attorney and who will be paying any judgment (in reality it’s almost always that person’s insurance company).

The Allstate attorneys in the case were hellbent on getting access to the plaintiff’s Facebook pictures. The attorneys argued that they needed the pictures to show what the plaintiff looked like before the accident (even though they already had pictures of her).

Liability was admitted, so the issue for the jury to decide was “how much did the plaintiff’s damages add up to?” (the airbag deployed during the wreck and the plaintiff suffered scars from the lacerations and resulting 95 stitches on her face).

The Pennsylvania court ruled that the plaintiff didn’t need to turn over the photos.

Some thoughts on the case:

1. Note that the car accident was in May of 2007! Even though the case was clear/admitted liability, Allstate was still fighting the claim four years later.
2. Admitted liability cases can be tricky/annoying for jurors: they generally aren’t allowed to hear if the property damage was settled and who’s actually paying the bills. Also remember that the plaintiff will generally need to repay anything that was paid by their health insurance company.
3. Insurance companies and their attorneys will go out of there way to poke holes in car accident cases
4. This reiterates the point that personal injury claimants should be truthful throughout the whole process.

Image via Wikipedia

I use my iPhone all the time, but one of the Android phones may be worth looking into.  A man recently used the Google My Tracks app to prove that (or at least raise enough doubt) to get himself out of a speeding ticket.

The app can track miles traveled, maximum speed, and average speed.

It would also be a handy program to keep track of your kid’s driving!  Or kids, if you’re wanting a new cell phone this may be the answer.

“What happens if my car accident trial is after the two year statute of limitations is up?”

At least for the statute of limitations issue, the actual trial date doesn’t matter.  The “two years” requirement is for filing the lawsuit.   Trials are often well after the actual accident.  By the time the actual trial date as rolled around, both parties have gone through multiple rounds of negotiation and discovery.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration recently released a proposed mandated that all vehicles produced by 2014 have a backup camera.  The Kelly Blue Book article states that “NHTSA estimates that 292 deaths and 18,000 injuries occur each year as the result of these types of back-over incidents.”

I’m all for having a backup camera in my car, but can I get Netflix in there as well?